Drive Wire: October 22, 2015

Toyota recall, Tesla’s Consumer Reports downgrade, Paul Miller’s car upgrade, a nifty car monitor, and a self-driving Delorean.

byThe Drive Staff|
Drive Wire: October 22, 2015
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Hey guys, it’s Christina Thompson, and this is Drive Wire for Thursday, October 22.

In recall news... Toyota says there’s a very slight chance a buildup of grease in window switches may cause electrical shorts and fires in certain models. So far only two minor incidents are known of, but get your cars checked just in case you need the 45-minute fix done by your dealer. Also, seriously, if you’re an automaker and you’re going to have a minor electric window-switch recall on your cars? This is probably a good time.

Bad news for Tesla…Consumer Reports has downgraded the Tesla Model S just months after giving the electric super-sedan its highest rating ever. The magazine changed its reliability rating for the Tesla from average to below average, sending Tesla’s stock price down approximately $10 a share. Apparently issues reported with the car include alignment, drivetrain problems on the first run of cars, and brake-disc warping. The good news for Tesla: 97 percent of owners say they’d buy another one.

In awesome news…Paul Miller Racing will be running a Huracan GT3 in the IMSA Weather-Tech Sports Car Championship starting with the 2016 season…and we are stoked. The Lambo will run in the GT-Daytona class and Miller, who currently runs Sudis, says he fully expects to be competitive. Of course he does, he’s driving a Lamborghini.

Turning to stuff you need…. We’ve seen plug-and-play car monitors before. But the Voyo may be the nicest one we’ve come across. Combined with its companion smartphone app, it actually becomes a whole connected car system. The device uses your phone’s GPS to go beyond the usual diagnostic functions. The Voyo will give you everything from traffic and weather updates to social media connectivity.

Today’s ridiculous video features Marty, Stanford University’s seriously dreamy, self-driving, self-drifting Delorean. Students built Marty to study how cars perform in extreme situations, which could ultimately guide the development of autonomous safety protocols. The way we see it, if you're going to build a self-drifting car, why not do it with some style?

That’s it for today’s edition of Drive Wire. For more, be sure to come back to thedrive.com, and follow us @thedrive on all your favorite social media platforms.

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